In his ear, he heard Jordan’s ragged breath. “Sorry about this, Matthew,” he muttered, straining as he curled his arm tighter. “I really am.”
Then the red spots behind Matt’s eyes faded, and the world went black.
* * * *
The first thing Matt became aware of was the faint tick tick tick of an analog clock. His neck felt bruised, his tongue swollen; his chin rested against his chest and a vein in his temple pulsed with a pounding rush of blood that Matt thought he could hear, it seemed so loud. It beat in time with the second hand of the unseen clock, like a referee counting out as Jordan pinned Matt down. Only Jordan no longer strangled him—Matt sensed he was alone, and he opened one bleary eye to be certain.
He sat on the bar stool, legs tied to the foot rest and arms bound behind the back slats of the stool, perched like an exotic bird in the middle of a bedroom he didn’t recognize. The open door showed a length of dark hallway that ended in Kyle’s bright chrome and white kitchen. This was the guest room, then—though Matt had never spent the night with Kyle, his ex-boyfriend had often tried to entice Matt into his own bedroom, and this wasn’t it. The sound of running water came from the kitchen; someone else was home.
“Hey!” Matt called out. The hoarse voice that escaped his lips sounded nothing like his. He cleared his throat, grimacing at the pain that flared to life in it, and tried again. “Kyle, is that you? This isn’t funny!”
In the kitchen, the water cut off. Matt waited, for the first time in his life praying to see Kyle turn the corner, but his heart sank when Jordan stepped into view instead. “Matthew, really,” he tittered, coming down the hall. “What will the neighbors think?”
Matt started to thrash about, rocking the stool from side to side as he strained against the ropes that held him tight. “Let me go, you freak. I told you no, didn’t I? When Vic finds me here—”
“How long do you think that’ll be?” Jordan asked. It was an innocent question, posed in an almost curious fashion, but it cut right through Matt’s protests and the stool teetered to a stop. As Jordan closed the bedroom door behind him, an ugly smile slid across his face. “Didn’t tell him you were coming here, did you? Is he smart enough to figure it out? Smarter than he looks?”
“Shut up,” Matt growled. Switching tactics, he tried, “Look. Let me go, all right? We’ll forget this ever happened. You can’t keep me tied up here forever. When Kyle gets home—”
“Kyle’s working a double shift.” Jordan crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps. The smug look on his face betrayed how much he was enjoying this. “It’s just you and me, Matthew. No boyfriends. No supermen. No interruptions.”
Matt felt the first sliver of fear, like a bead of sweat, trickle down his back. “What do you mean?” he whispered. He didn’t really want to know.
Stopping in front of the bar stool, Jordan leaned close to Matt, so close that he tried to pull back and couldn’t. Jordan leaned closer, his breath on Matt’s face now, a sour air that made Matt want to cough, but he found it impossible to look away from those dark eyes that held him in place.
When a gentle hand touched his bare knee, Matt jumped. Jordan placed his other hand on Matt’s right leg, then cupped his palms around his bony knees. With soft strokes, he began to rub his way up Matt’s thighs, his fingertips easing into the legs of Matt’s swim trunks in their exploration. “No,” Matt whispered with a shake of his head. He tried to shake Jordan off but his feet were bound tight to the bottom of the stool and he couldn’t move out of the way. Jordan stepped closer, his hands sliding into Matt’s shorts, the fabric bunching at Jordan’s wrists. Then Jordan brushed a nail over Matt’s thickly curled pubic hair; Matt tried to twist the other way and only succeeded in placing the length of his stiffening dick right into Jordan’s other hand.
“Going commando,” Jordan observed with a wicked grin. His fist closed around Matt’s shaft with an almost painful squeeze. “I wouldn’t have thought you the type.”
“Jordan,” Matt tried again. “Please—”
Hot lips covered his, silencing him. Matt clamped his mouth shut but Jordan prodded him with his tongue, seeking entry. Matt turned his head this way and that, unable to shake the man off. The insistent tongue forced its way into Matt’s mouth—it was cold, so cold, tasting of tea and ice cubes and some wintry mint chewing gum. The hand at his crotch massaged him fiercely, as if tugging at him long enough would get him erect. Unfortunately for Matt, it seemed to be working.
His mind protested, every synapse on fire, every nerve alight; his body, his stupid, brainless, animalistic body felt another’s closeness and responded in kind. His cock didn’t care this wasn’t Vic; like a dumb dog, it wagged its stiff tail at whoever showed it the slightest interest, eager to please. The tongue filling his mouth, disgusting him, only egged his libido on.
::Vic,:: his mind whispered, then louder, again, ::Vic.::
His lover’s name was a battle cry that brought Matt to his senses. He could fight against this—he would. The only man who would have him would be Vic. It mattered little that his lover didn’t know where he was, because Matt knew Vic would find him. The name in his mind cranked up to a shrill cry, like the emergency alarm that rang out over the radio waves. Matt imagined it filling the air, a homing beacon that would bring Vic right to Kyle’s doorstep in no time at all.
Ignoring the lustful sensations flooding his body, Matt brought his teeth together around Jordan’s tongue in a painful bite.
The coppery stench of blood filled Matt’s mouth. With a howl of pain, Jordan released Matt’s dick and stepped back out of reach. His hands slipped from Matt’s pants, and one flew to his face. “You’ll pay for that,” he promised, nursing his bruised tongue. “I was going to make it fun for both of us, but now I’ve changed my mind.”
Matt spat Jordan’s blood out of his mouth, then spat again, trying to rid himself of the man’s noxious taste. “When he finds you,” he muttered, “Vic’s going to kill you. You know that, right?”
Despite Jordan’s mean laugh, Matt knew his lover would find him soon enough. He just had to hold out that long.
* * * *
Chapter 21
Vic slept until quarter to nine and, just before he woke, he had the most deliciously kinky dreams. Images of Matt, bound hand and foot, helpless on a tall stool before him. His lover’s lips, so soft beneath his own, so pliant—Vic could almost taste them pressed against his mouth. Matt’s bare knees spread apart, the front of his swim trunks tenting over the head of the hard cock that jutted from his crotch. Vic dreamed of his hands easing into those shorts, fingers tickling under the hems of the leg holes and finding their way over Matt’s thighs to meet at the erection between his legs. Matt moaned into his mouth, the sound so real it caused Vic’s hands to clench into his pillow as he thrust against the mattress in his sleep, seeking some relief to the throbbing erection pinned beneath his body. In his mind, Matt’s kiss dissolved into words, Vic’s name whispered again and again. Vic rubbed against the bed, eager to get off on the dream. His hips moved in time with Matt’s voice, Vic Vic Vic, over and over, his voice rising to a fever pitch. Like a horny schoolboy, Vic humped the mattress, hands fisted in his pillow, the friction of bed sheets over the tip of his bare dick exciting him to the brink of orgasm.
Then Matt’s voice rose to a shrill cry, his name one long syllable of longing that seemed to trigger the clock on Vic’s bedside table. As the alarm went off, Vic came in a breathless rush that woke him up.
Sweat glistened on his forehead, beaded above his upper lip. Vic wiped it away, then rolled over to cut off the alarm. One hand strayed beneath the sheets to stroke his abating erection. It’d been a long time since he’d had such a powerful wet dream. Had he thought that up by himself? Matt tied to a chair, defenseless, as Vic did what he wanted to his lover?
Or was that Matt’s doing, something subconscious sent through their mental connection, something guaranteed to get Vic up, in more ways than one?
The thought of straddling Matt on that stool and sitting down on his lover’s thick cock, guiding it into him because Matt’s hands were tied, made Vic hard again. Only once had they ever done anything even remotely restrictive—when Vic’s facial tattoo was still fresh, Matt couldn’t seem to keep from touching it. In an effort to keep his hands away, Vic had pulled his lover’s T-shirt over his head, then laid him down on the couch and tucked the shirt into the space between the arm rest and the cushion. Matt’s arms were held out of the way, the upper half of his face obscured, and Vic was able to explore his lover’s nakedness at his leisure, teasing Matt until he begged Vic to let him in.
Vic was surprised at how much he was turned on imagining Matt all trussed up. With a grunt of pleasure and that image sharp in his mind, he jerked off until he came a second time.
* * * *
After his shower, he remembered the soiled sheets and stripped them off the bed. He left them in a pile by the clothes hamper, then dressed in his work uniform. There was a wet spot on the mattress pad he didn’t want to cover—better to leave clean sheets off for now, let the mattress dry, then make the bed. In the kitchen he scribbled a note to Matt, asking him if he wouldn’t mind putting on fresh sheets when he got home. Had an “accident,” Vic wrote, grinning as he pictured Matt would when he read the note later. Was thinking of you, what can I say? Since you weren’t home, I had to handle it myself. I did all right, but would’ve preferred a helping hand. But it did give me some ideas for tonight, if you’re “up” for it…
He left the note on the fridge, where Matt would find it when he came home from the gym. For a moment he toyed with the idea of swinging by the gym on his way into work, just to steal a few minutes with his lover—that bondage dream had him hotter than he’d been in a long time. If it wasn’t a dream but Matt’s own devilish thoughts somehow spanning the distance between them, then maybe there was enough time to at least get things started…
But a glance at the clock told Vic he had to get moving. This evening then. They didn’t have a stool, but one of the kitchen chairs would do just fine. Vic would have to remember to get out the tie-down straps he kept in the trunk of his car for emergencies. This could certainly qualify.
Even if Matt hadn’t planted the seeds of bondage in Vic’s mind, he suspected his lover wouldn’t object to adding a little kink to their foreplay. The hint of a smile threatened to break across his face but Vic tamped it down and hurried out the door before he was late for work.
* * * *
The dream followed Vic into the day and resurfaced in his mind at the oddest times. At the bathroom in the bus garage, it came back with such force that Vic had to zip up in mid-stream at the urinal and duck into a stall before anyone else came in and saw his sudden hard-on. The last thing he needed was to give one of his coworkers the wrong impression. During his route, his seat belt rode high across his lap, covering his crotch and applying sweet pressure to his cock whenever thoughts of Matt aroused him. He knew he was in love with the man, there was no denying it, but he didn’t know where this sudden interest in bondage play was coming from. Could it be Matt’s earlier suggestion of no hands that triggered lustful thoughts of stepping their sex life up a notch?
At Broad and Libbie, Vic pulled the bus over to pick up a couple college-aged girls who giggled over his tattoos as he ignored them. An image blindsided him—Matt on the stool, still bound, the front of his shorts pulled down and tucked beneath his balls, his hard shaft curving up toward his belly. At the very edge of the image Vic saw a hand he assumed was his own, holding a long, narrow, neon tube: a reusable ice cube, the kind that fit into sports bottles to keep the contents chilled. The tube was pressed to the base of Matt’s cock, just above his balls, in an area Vic knew was more sensitive than anywhere else on his lover’s body. How many times had he nuzzled into Matt’s crotch to lick at the area? To nip it between his teeth, give the loose skin a gentle tug, as Matt writhed on the bed in ecstasy? If Vic touched nothing but that tiny spot of skin, within minutes Matt would come in thick, ropy spurts that left him trembling and spent.
What would happen with a touch of ice on that heated trigger point? As Vic navigated through downtown traffic, his concentration wasn’t on the cars around him or the fares on his bus, but in his own head, where the hand holding the frozen tube eased it up Matt’s length, until it touched the tip of his dick. Vic could hear Matt’s gasp as the cold plastic swirled around the plum-shaped head, once, twice, then trailed back down to the base again. Vic’s own balls throbbed to see his lover pleasured to such an extreme. When Matt could hold out no longer and climaxed, Vic had to shift in the driver’s seat to alleviate the uncomfortable ache in his own crotch. He came a little himself, biting his lip as he glared out at the world beyond his windshield, daring anyone to interrupt this private moment. Beneath the seat belt, his briefs felt damp against his heated skin.
Before the image of Matt could fade, Vic watched in horror as a hand slapped his lover’s cheek with a hard smack that resounded through him like a gunshot. Matt’s head snapped back in submission. Vic almost stood on the brake in anger and confusion. What the fuck?
He’d never hit Matt, even if his lover begged him. He didn’t get off on pain, tattoos and piercings notwithstanding. That was self-inflicted, and sexy to him because it appealed to his sense of counterculture. But hitting and whipping and beating…he couldn’t get off on that. He knew just how much of a lucky bastard he was to have a man like Matt in his life. Vic would never dare jeopardize that, even with a playful smack.
There was nothing playful about that.
He shook his head to clear it. The image of Matt bound to the stool disappeared. The ache at his groin remained, but at the slap, the erection that had been straining against his seat belt vanished. He wasn’t turned on by such violence, was he?
He didn’t think so.
Then where did that petty image come from? It had risen unbidden in his mind. Unless Matt sent it—
No. His lover’s thoughts always left a warm, sweet taste in Vic’s psyche, like caramel melting down the back of his throat. This image had been sexual, yes, but it’d also been hard, almost abrasive. It turned Vic on because he thought Matt was turned on—given his lover’s orgasm, he’d liked it…up until the end. That slap made Vic question whether such arousal was a good thing or not.
Maybe it hadn’t been Matt’s thought at all—maybe Vic was picking up on something else. Maybe someone had seen him, recognized him as Matt’s lover, and even now was getting off on the thought of him roughing up Matt. Someone like…
Jordan.
Vic glanced in the mirror above his seat to scan the patrons on his bus. Jordan was not among them. But maybe he’d been at the bus stop, had seen Vic but didn’t dare catch a ride, afraid of what might be said. He tried to think back to the last stop—had anyone stayed behind?
He didn’t know. He didn’t think so, but to be honest, the thought of Matt’s veined cock had flooded his mind and shorted out the rest of the world. And by the time he made it back around to Libbie and Broad a second time, Jordan was not there.
If he’d ever been in the first place.
* * * *
By the time Vic’s shift was over, he was more than ready to clock out. He felt exhausted, his balls numb with a dull ache from his being horny for most of the day. He wanted nothing more than to go home, maybe sink into a tub full of hot, soapy water, and let Matt’s hands and a soft washcloth bring him to release. It must be some new power that had him all riled up, some sort of extra-sensory perception that had his skin crawling and his nerves on edge. Come to think of it, after their lovemaking the night before, his backside had been rubbed raw from carpet burns, as had Matt’s knees. T
hey laughed about it at the time, but maybe all those highly eroticized thoughts stemmed from the same source. Something in him kept winding him up…
Maybe his skin was super-sensitive, and just the touch of fabric from his underwear was enough to get him hard. So what, his mind compensated with hardcore thoughts of his lover in positions of submission, fanning the flames? Maybe. If that were the case, maybe he should just go home and jerk off over and over again until the power was spent and he couldn’t get it up any more.
It made sense; he’d had other heightened abilities before. Giving Matt a blowjob made the world swim into extra sharp, almost Technicolor focus. And once, when Vic let Matt’s cock slip from his mouth before his lover came, Vic took a face full of cum. He’d turned his head this way and that as Matt jerked off on him. The hot jism felt decadent on his bald pate, but some of the semen must’ve trickled into Vic’s ears because he spent the rest of the night wide awake, listening to a whispered conversation in the apartment below them. So their last position must’ve heightened his libido, simple as that. Nothing a good, old-fashioned missionary style fuck wouldn’t cure.
Back at the bus garage, he shrugged out of the jacket he wore while driving and hung it in his locker. Then he slammed the door shut, waved when someone called out his name, and headed for the time clock. He stepped in line behind another employee already clocking out, his mind drifting ahead to the rest of his evening, oblivious to his surroundings. Ahead, his coworker looked over his shoulder as he punched out, then noticed Vic and turned toward him. Despite the fact that they were only three feet apart, the other employee shouted out, “Hey, big guy!”
Bonds of Love Page 18
